The Creator Effectiveness Playbook: How to Build Your Brand with Creators is a major new study from WPP Media, the creative testing firm System1, and TikTok. It offers outstanding insights and best practices for audio talent endorsements and host reads. The global study found that entertainment earns emotion and early branding gives the brand credit. This week’s Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group® blog examines the key findings.
- Host-read ads generate greater impact: System1 and WPP Media find creator ads (a.k.a. “host reads”) drive greater brand memory lift, which is the combination of brand awareness and ad recall.
- Two best practices: Say the name of the advertiser within the first two seconds and ensure strong positive emotion via entertainment.
- “Say it and show it”: Saying the brand and showing it in the first two seconds of the ad drives the strongest brand recognition.
- Conduct a “brand early and often” creative audit: Watch/listen to all your ads. Check off if your brand is mentioned in the first two seconds and if there are at least five or more audio track brand mentions in 30-second ads.
- Use both salesmanship andshowmanship: Emotion-based creative that is funny and entertaining builds stronger brands and generates greater business outcomes.
- Utilize right brain elements such as characters with vitality, story unfolding, clear sense of place, sounds of the living, dialogue, word play, distinctive accents, and music with discernable melody.
To read the full blog post by Pierre Bouvard, Chief Insights Officer of the Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group®, visit: https://www.westwoodone.com/blog/2026/09/21/new-wpp-media-system1-study-reveals-best-practices-for-podcast-host-and-am-fm-radio-talent-ad-reads/. To view a 17-minute video of the key findings, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUr08xVyQpI.
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